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Brief-ish rant for AIDs day
Dec. 2nd, 2003 09:03 pmIsh, because I've never been brief in a rant in my life.
With that brief introductions, onwards!
First, where is the knowledge, the outrage? Gods, where is the fear? Not so long ago a few hundred people caught the SARs virus, a virus, we must add, that doesn't have that high a death rate; and the world panics. We have papers screaming, people wearing face masks in the street, country's quarentined and even a few apocalypse preachers round the edges (but we kinda always have them).
AIDs affects 10s of millions of people. Millions die every year. Thousands have people have died today because of AIDs. And, you know what? It's not getting better. It's not going away. These numbers are GROWING. Where's the fear? Where's the panic? Sod that, where's the actual attempt to DO something?!
We need advertising, we need knowledge, we need education. And this is what makes it so sickening that in an attempt at the UN to raise awareness about AIDs witha few celebrities to catch more news - the press decided to question one of them - one of the Jackson family - about his brother's court case. YE GODS OF MERCY! Millions of people dying, and you openly sabotage an attempt to raise awareness for a scoop?!
But we need to debunk some myths. We need adverts to cross out a few of these, seriously:
1) It isn't a gay issue. I'm not saying this just because I am gay. I know about Aids. Everyone I know does. We get pamphlets, we get posters. Every club, group, society or organisation I know of will BURY you in these. Even our porn industry gives prizes for safe sex, and condoms are expected in most porno.
2) It isn't a drug user issue.
3) It isn't a prostitution/promiscuity issue.
These are 3 dangerous ones we need to correct, because it means there's a lot of straight, drug free people out there who are living in the "won't happen to me" zone. It can be caught from just one lover, the pill doesn't cut it.
The condom WORKS. We need some major awareness bombardment on that, especially we need to counter the below:
1)It is, in my opinion, frankly nothing short of murder, if not genocide, that the Catholic church (and possibly other organisations) are claiming that there are tiny pores in the condom that makes it useless stopping the virus. For an organisation of this much influence to say this astounds me. How many lives have been lost for fucking ideology?!
2) Abstinence/exclusive monogomy isn't the only way. Yeah, I know it IS probably the most reliable way of stopping the spread, but be reasonable here people. Go back to being 16. Hey, for that matter, stay where you are right now. Right, I'm telling you never to have sex ever again unless you intend to marry that person. Happy? Likely? Snowball's chance in hell? {already married people don;t have to answer that}
It's been said before and it will be said again: education is the key.
With that brief introductions, onwards!
First, where is the knowledge, the outrage? Gods, where is the fear? Not so long ago a few hundred people caught the SARs virus, a virus, we must add, that doesn't have that high a death rate; and the world panics. We have papers screaming, people wearing face masks in the street, country's quarentined and even a few apocalypse preachers round the edges (but we kinda always have them).
AIDs affects 10s of millions of people. Millions die every year. Thousands have people have died today because of AIDs. And, you know what? It's not getting better. It's not going away. These numbers are GROWING. Where's the fear? Where's the panic? Sod that, where's the actual attempt to DO something?!
We need advertising, we need knowledge, we need education. And this is what makes it so sickening that in an attempt at the UN to raise awareness about AIDs witha few celebrities to catch more news - the press decided to question one of them - one of the Jackson family - about his brother's court case. YE GODS OF MERCY! Millions of people dying, and you openly sabotage an attempt to raise awareness for a scoop?!
But we need to debunk some myths. We need adverts to cross out a few of these, seriously:
1) It isn't a gay issue. I'm not saying this just because I am gay. I know about Aids. Everyone I know does. We get pamphlets, we get posters. Every club, group, society or organisation I know of will BURY you in these. Even our porn industry gives prizes for safe sex, and condoms are expected in most porno.
2) It isn't a drug user issue.
3) It isn't a prostitution/promiscuity issue.
These are 3 dangerous ones we need to correct, because it means there's a lot of straight, drug free people out there who are living in the "won't happen to me" zone. It can be caught from just one lover, the pill doesn't cut it.
The condom WORKS. We need some major awareness bombardment on that, especially we need to counter the below:
1)It is, in my opinion, frankly nothing short of murder, if not genocide, that the Catholic church (and possibly other organisations) are claiming that there are tiny pores in the condom that makes it useless stopping the virus. For an organisation of this much influence to say this astounds me. How many lives have been lost for fucking ideology?!
2) Abstinence/exclusive monogomy isn't the only way. Yeah, I know it IS probably the most reliable way of stopping the spread, but be reasonable here people. Go back to being 16. Hey, for that matter, stay where you are right now. Right, I'm telling you never to have sex ever again unless you intend to marry that person. Happy? Likely? Snowball's chance in hell? {already married people don;t have to answer that}
It's been said before and it will be said again: education is the key.